“I wanted so badly to be a positive and healthy role model for my beautiful young daughter.”
My husband Keith and I were seriously overweight most of lives. We became morbidly obese following our wedding in 2001. We maintained unhealthy eating habits, and ate to cope with a wide range of emotions. At our heaviest, we weighed nearly 300 pounds each. In September 2009, while at a local amusement park with my four-year-old daughter, I was publically asked to get off a ride, because I was unable to secure the safety bar over my protruding stomach. Humiliated, I lead my daughter to another ride, only to be called a “fat cow” by the teenage ferris wheel operator. Enough was enough! I was tired of being taunted and discriminated against because of my weight. I wanted so badly to be a positive and healthy role model for my beautiful young daughter. That day, I pledged to return to the theme park with my child the following year—this time as the healthier, slimmer, hot mama!
The task seemed daunting, especially because Keith and I had made some serious attempts to lose weight in the past, without success. I randomly enrolled in a one-time hooping class near my house. Intrigued, I sought out further training, but when I couldn’t find any other classes in my area, I decided to order the Hoopnotica Level 1 instructional DVD. I began hooping with Hoopnotica about 15 minutes a day during “open gym” at the YMCA. I would stake out a little corner to hoop in on the court while the guys played basketball and snickered. It took me over two weeks just to be able to keep the hoop spinning around my waist, but from day one, I felt a tremendous difference in my core strength, confidence and energy just from the workout involved in dropping, bending over and picking up the hoop.
Committing to Hoopnotica as a couple
Two months later, I began to master some tricks and lost a significant chunk of weight. Impressed by my preliminary results, as well as all of the fun I was having, my somewhat skeptical husband, Keith, decided to teach himself to hoop as well with the Hoopnotica DVD. Keith didn’t initially see his weight as much of an issue. He boasted that he only needed to lose 20 lbs to look fit again, however when he soon reached his goal of 280, he couldn’t even tell the difference—he had so much more weight to lose! From this moment on, Keith and I committed to helping each other lose major poundage by practicing Hoopnotica and making simple lifestyle changes. We increased our workouts to 30 minutes of hoop time a day, and within a year lost nearly 150 pounds each! Hooping together has really helped us to maintain our weight loss commitment; we have so much fun doing it, and it’s great having a partner to help with the troubleshooting of more complex moves, i.e. jump-ins, duck-outs, not to mention it provides a healthy dose of spousal competition!
“The best $60 we’ve ever spent!”
At a current weight of about 145 lbs, I am now a full time certified Hoopnotica instructor of levels 1 and 2, often teaching up to six classes a day! Keith became a group fitness instructor and personal trainer. Our lifestyle changes literally translated to our livelihoods by allowing us to create our own business. This would not have been possible without Hoopnotica. When I bought my first hoop, and Hoopnotica DVD for $60 in 2009, Keith had recently been laid off, and I was a stay at home mom. What seemed at the time like a frivolous purchase was in the end the best $60 we’ve ever spent! (We’ve since seen a return on that $60 X 10,000+!)
My weight loss and return to health through hooping has given me the confidence to manifest success in many other areas of my life. I needed this confidence so badly! I needed to believe in myself. As a hoop instructor, I am proud to share the delight of hooping with my students, and hope that by equipping them with a hoop, I am playing a role in their personal empowerment as well.
P.S. in case you’re wondering, I did return to that amusement park, and yes, I am a hot mama!